Shifts in family policy in the UK under New Labour

Abstract

In the years since it came to power in 1997, New Labour has set about reforming key elements of the British welfare state. In its wide-ranging vision, project even, the family has had a central place. This article probes the meaning and significance of New Labour’s focus on the family and considers whether it represents a change compared with past policies. The impressive range of measures put in place by New Labour suggests considerable change. These measures address, inter alia, children’s early education and care, services to stabilise and improve the quality of family relations especially in low-income sectors of the population, parental employment and greater flexibility in work and family life. But the balance between change and continuity is a relatively fine one. While New Labour’s concerns about family have sui generis aspects, they also draw upon long-standing features of and concerns around the welfare state in the UK. One conclusion, then, is that while there has been innovation, not least in the policy settings and instruments, New Labour’s approach to the family draws upon and reinforces existing philosophies around welfare and the family. However, under New Labour, the family became more rather than less important as a concern of policy. A second conclusion, then, is that New Labour has sought a balance between its selectivist approach and a more universalist concern to elevate family as an agent and source of social stability. A third conclusion and a key element of the argument advanced is that New Labour’s policy has to be understood as part of an ideological project that is both social and economic in nature.